2019-10-27 - Plush

He's standing in the mist. It laps around him, obscuring the details and leaving him a fuzzy silhouette that she knows so well. She remembers him as tall -- a giant with close-cut, balding blond hair and blue eyes that could cut through to the soul. When she did something that disappointed him, the cut of his jaw and set of his mouth was enough to make her look down in shame. But here, in the mist, he's not as tall as she remembers.

He wears the same clothes the night he had disappeared -- slacks, button-up shirt loosened at the collar, a suit jacket, and his weathered shoes. Beneath the button-up, he wears that black Stone Temple Pilots t-shirt. It was always his rebellion against the detective dress code -- band t-shirts.

"Dad?"

Nathaniel Jones turns toward his daughter. His aged face breaks into a tired smile. "Hey, Maggie."

Confusion tightens her brows, cinching them together. "Dad, what are you doing here?"

"I'm always here, sprig."

Magnolia shakes her head. "Where's here?"

His smile widens just as hers often does, and he looks down at his feet as his hands slip into the pockets of his slacks. "Here. Beyond. Sometimes, I find these places, and sometimes, you're there. Sometimes, you aren't."

Detective Jones looks aside at the misty forest. She knows this place. He took her and Oliver here once to tell them about the Veil, to tell them about the Glimmer. He always knew more than he let on. The Joneses have been in Gray Harbor as long as the Addingtons and Baxters. They've always known.

"Dad, I don't -- " She stops. "This is a Dream."

"Capital D."

"You're from the Veil."

Again, he smiles, and then purses his lips together while he bobs his head this way and that. "Kinda." He shakes his head, stepping forward while outstretching a hand to her shoulder. "Listen, sprig. There's not much time. I would give everything to answer all your questions, to tell you everything you need to know, but there's just... not enough time."

"Dad, what the fuck is going on -- "

"You need to go to Elm." The mists start to darken, the trees start to blur. "There's a house with a white dog house in the back. Under the dog house, you will find it."

"It?" Her voice echoes strangely over the darkening clearing.

Detective Jones steps in closer to his daughter, taking her by both shoulders. "Get to the house. Under the dog house. White dog house. Repeat it, Magnolia."

The shadows start to stretch, and glowing white eyes blink open in their lengthening, non corporeal bodies. She feels the strange chill start to sink into her bones, through her PJs, though her skin.

"White dog house, Elm street."

His hands come up to cup her cheeks, and he smiles down at her. There's a sadness there. "Good girl." The mists blurs around his edges as he leans in close to kiss her forehead.

"Dad."

"Wake up, Magnolia."

"Dad, no!" She grabs for him --

-- Magnolia startles awake, grabbing hold of the arms of her desk chair. Outside, on the street outside her office, a fog rolls through and with it comes that late October chill. Her breath is tight in her chest, and on the edges of her hearing, music creeps in from the speaker she didn't know she had left on, on her desk.

When the dogs do find her
Got time, time, to wait for tomorrow
To find it, to find it, to find it
When the dogs do find her
Got time…